Friday, March 16, 2012

Former NFL wide receiver Freddie Mitchell has been indicted for allegedly assisting a couple with filing fraudulent tax returns for professional athletes. Apparently, the plan was to grossly inflate the tax refund due to the pro athlete, and back that up with fake documents. From the Orlando Sentinel:

Mitchell turned himself into authorities, but it is unclear when his next court appearance will be. His two co-defendants, Jamie Russ-Walls and her husband Richard Walls, were arrested in Pennsylvania and are scheduled to be arraigned in Orlando on Thursday. All three are accused of conspiring to defraud the IRS.

Russ-Walls or Walls prepared individual income-tax returns that falsely claimed the taxpayers were due significant refunds, in amounts ranging from $170,000 to $1.9 million, and created false documents to support their fraudulent claims, the indictment alleges.

From some quick research it looks like Mitchell was probably just the pipeline for contacting pro athletes because of his four year(yeah, I know, it seemed like a lot longer) NFL career. Wonder if he got into this racket after his BBQ restaurant went under?

The big question now is who is "A.G." that was hoodwinked by FredEx? I checked out the Philadelphia rosters from 01-04, but didn't see any players with those initials. Nothing on the '05 Chiefs either. Anyone have any ideas?